Transcontinental
by Luthien-Targaryen
Summary: Deathstroke and his super-soldiers are off the streets, but Starling City and its residents are struggling to pick up the pieces following the chaos. Meanwhile, Roy has been arrested for a crime he doesn't remember committing, and the cop who did the arresting might be in the city for another reason all together. AU after season 2.


**While I'm listing this as a crossover, it's actually more like a logical expansion of the Arrow-verse. Much like the _Arrow _writers have altered and used elements of the Green Arrow comics canon for the show, I'll be doing the same with elements of the Batman comics canon. I expect this story to be rather long, and I will update when I can. Unfortunately, as I've also mentioned in my profile, please do not expect entirely regular updates.**

**That being said, this story picks up where Unthinkable left off. Unless the writers and I share a brain, it will be AU to whatever Season 3 may bring. Happy reading!**

* * *

Laurel leaned her head back against the stark, sterile walls of her father's hospital room. Her finger tapped against her leg in a steady rhythm, unconsciously keeping time with the reassuring march of the heart monitor. Detective Lance's chest rose and fell to match it, but other than that he lay completely still. As cliché and tired as the sentiment was, she couldn't help thinking that he looked almost peaceful.

It unnerved her. She closed her eyes.

Just thirty-six hours ago, Slade Wilson and his army of super-soldiers were wreaking havoc in the city. They burned and destroyed everything they could get their hands on, cutting down anybody stupid enough to get in their way. Thirty-six hours ago, her presumed-dead, vigilante ex-boyfriend and her equally presumed-dead, vigilante sister were fighting against him with no little skill and success. Her sister's assassin girlfriend had joined the fight as well, leading what Laurel could only describe as an army of ninja.

Thirty-six hours ago, life – secret identities, vigilantes, and ninja included – had made far more sense than it currently did from the inside of this room

She didn't know how long she had been asleep before a light hand on her shoulder jolted her back into consciousness.

"God! Ollie!" Laurel blinked and squinted up at him through the harsh fluorescent lighting, shifting her tired limbs into a slightly more comfortable position. Not that comfort was actually an option in a hospital room unless you were unlucky enough to be the person in the bed. "Can you at least try to make a little noise next time you sneak up on someone like that?"

For his part, Oliver Queen had the presence of mind to look apologetic.

_Actually, forget apologetic_, Laurel thought once she cleared her head a little. _You may be Starling City__'__s famous vigilante, but right now you looked like someone kicked your puppy. _"Sorry," she muttered. "It's been a rough couple of days." She then deftly avoided any further attempts at sympathy on Ollie's part by quickly standing up and crossing to the other side of the room. Finding herself standing beside her father's bed, she tugged sharply at the corners of his already straight sheets. She smoothed out a mass of wrinkles which she knew perfectly well were imaginary and tried to ignore the fact tears were blurring her vision. Again.

"Laurel . . ." A gentle but firm grip closed over her wrists, stilling her movements. She blinked away a few tears that threatened to spill over of their own accord.

Shit.

_I should just tell him to leave_, she thought bitterly. _To leave me and dad alone and never come back. _She was alone now anyways, she reasoned, and dammit if a very large part of her didn't want to blame Oliver for that. _It would feel right to blame him. Like something normal had finally returned to the world. _After all, she had spent six years blaming him for Sara's death, and now her dad was in a coma after helping him fight his battles.

_But Sara__'__s not dead_, the annoyingly clear-headed part of her brain reminded her. _She__'__s an Assassin now. Probably off with her Assassin girlfriend, doing whatever it is that Assassins do when they__'__re not kidnapping people__'__s mothers and murdering people in cold blood. _

_Yeah, but__— _She tried to argue with her own logic.

_Dad__'__s not dead either._

_No, he__'__s not. _Laurel relaxed a little, then took a deep breath and turned to face her visitor. "Why are you here, Ollie?"

"I just wanted to see how he was doing," he answered softly. Sympathetically.

God, she hated that.

"He's not great," she snapped before she could stop herself. He didn't so much as blink at her tone, which only served to make her feel worse. She continued dully. "When they brought him in, two of the ribs on his lower right side were almost completely shattered. His liver was badly damaged, too, and pieces of the bones were embedded in his stomach and other organs. His lung finally collapsed when they made their way up to his diaphragm."

Oliver winced. "That's a lot of damage."

She nodded. "He got out of surgery a little over twelve hours ago. They picked out all the little bits of bone and stitched up what they could, but . . ." She trailed off.

"But they don't think he'll make it."

"Actually, he might. That's the thing — the doctor's basically said that they've done all they can, and it can go either way at this point. Meanwhile, dad's fighting for his life, and all I can do is sit around and wait." She didn't even try to hide her bitterness at that fact, and glared angrily at nowhere in particular.

"Laurel, please listen to me. I never meant—"

She was shaking her head before he could finish the sentence. "Ollie, stop it. It's not your fault." _No matter how much I wish it was_, she finished silently.

"You know, if it's anybody's fault, it's his own," she said after a moment. "They told me that there wouldn't have been nearly as much damage if he had just gotten checked out after he first got injured. He didn't though, of course. Not dad." She breathed out a little huff of laughter. "Stubborn bastard. Two broken ribs and bruised liver and he was still out there saving lives. Being a cop."

"He's a good man."

Laurel nodded her appreciation at his words. "Yeah," she agreed softly. "He is."

The ensuing silence was almost comfortable, but Oliver broke it less than a minute later. "How are you feeling?"

"Honestly? Like I need a really, really strong drink." She saw the warning glare that he was shooting her way and smirked. "Kidding. Sort of."

Oliver's glare subsided back into something a little closer to pity, and she sunk back into the lone chair in the corner. "I hate this," she admitted quietly. "I hate just sitting here, waiting for something to happen. Not being able to do anything to help him."

Oliver looked like he was about to say something in response to that — probably more useless platitudes and sympathy, if she knew him — when his phone rang. He glanced down at the caller ID, and his brow furrowed in confusion as if he didn't recognize the number. He accepted the call, glancing at her apologetically as he brought the phone to his ear. "Sorry. I should probably take this."

Laurel was about to ask who it was, when an angry voice sounded from the phone's speakers. She couldn't make out anything about it other than the fact that it sounded male, but it was loud enough to force Oliver to pull the phone a little ways away from his head before answering.

"Roy?" So that answered that question. "Roy, listen to me. Calm down. Tell me what's going on," she heard Oliver order, slipping into the deeper tones of the Arrow.

The kid must have obeyed, as Roy's response was quiet enough that Laurel couldn't hear it at all. She sighed and steeled herself for whatever life-or-death emergency had cropped up this time. Another batch of that super-drug on the streets. Maybe some explosive that Deathstroke had planted before the Arrow had taken him down. Honestly, very little would surprise her at this point.

She found out very quickly that she was wrong when the next thing she heard Oliver say was her name.

"Laurel?" he was saying, sounding almost as confused as she felt. "Yeah, she's right here, actually. Let me put you on speaker."

She took this as her cue, and walked over to join Oliver.

He held the phone between them, and the young vigilante's voice crackled over what sounded like a particularly bad connection.

". . .Good," he was saying, and years of experience interviewing the victims of violent crime told Laurel that something was very wrong. "'Cause it looks like I'm gonna need a good lawyer."

* * *

Roy Harper sat handcuffed to a desk in the middle of a room that still showed ample evidence of the chaos two nights before. Originally a main hub of operations for the SCPD, the room still looked like a war zone. Filing cabinets were thrown to the floor, and the room strewn with hundreds of folders and loose papers that used to be meticulously filed away. Desks were chipped and shoved roughly out of place, as if they were used to block doorways or form makeshift barricades. Several sported bullet holes as well, or were splattered by blood. One was completely splintered where a hapless cop had been thrown bodily onto it with super-human force.

Given the sturdy make of the remaining furniture in the room, one could only assume that the majority of the person's bones had suffered a similar fate.

The victims of the massacre had long since been removed, but the cops who were left alive and had returned to work seemed lost. Several wandered around listlessly, picking up and setting in order what they could. Trying to restore a semblance of order to the room. Others couldn't even do that, and just stood and stared in shock at the carnage. One burly man wearing a darkly stained uniform which looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since the bloodbath just stood against the wall, occasionally taking long drinks from what looked suspiciously like a flask. No one paid much attention to the angry teen shackled in the center of the room.

No-one, that is, except for the young, dark-haired cop who stood behind Roy, pretending not to listen as the Arrow's sidekick called the city's resident vigilante. Little more than a kid himself, the officer did not seem shocked as he viewed the chaos in the room, but simply saddened and sober. A careful observer might have also seen a gleam of righteous anger in his eyes. The man's immaculately clean uniform was rumpled, as if he had slept in it recently. Though, judging by the dark circles under his eyes, sleep wasn't a luxury that he indulged in with much frequency.

Not being local, the young officer actually drew a few quizzical glances from the Starling cops. If the badge on his chest was anything go by, he had recently traveled here from a city on the opposite side of the country.

Specifically, he was from Blüdhaven.


End file.
